A numerical study of the effect of geometrical factors on bi-layered tube hydroforming

Tube hydroforming is one type of unconventional metal forming process in which high fluid pressure and axial feed are used to deform a tube blank in the desired shape. Bi-layered tube hydroforming is suitable to produce bi-layered joints which can be used in special applications such as aerospace, oil production, and nuclear power plants. In this work a finite element study was performed using ANSYS LS-DYNA to investigate the effect of geometrical factors (Tube length, Initial thickness, and Corner radius) on bi-layered tube hydroforming of X branch. Bulge height, Von mises stresses, and thickness distribution were studied for the hydroformed part. Suggestions were made to increase formability of process by adjusting geometrical factors. Optimization was performed to get minimum thickness reduction for a specific design.